Apple, Adobe drifting apart

CNET News ^ | March 30, 2004 | David Becker

[Leroy S. Mort]

They share an area code, a customer segment and a history dating back to the early days of personal computing. But Apple Computer and Adobe Systems, like many in long-term relationships, have seen the 20-years-and-counting bond between them run hot and cold.

Right now, it's in a colder period. Signs of frost have been accumulating for the past couple of years, with Adobe dropping Macintosh support for several software products and introducing others as Microsoft Windows-only applications. At the same time, Apple has quietly pushed Adobe out of a few markets by selling its own applications or bundling them into its OS X operating system......

"At one point, they really were joined at the hip in terms of technology and even marketing," Tarter said. "Adobe made possible good laser printer output, and Apple produced a platform that's good for typography."

Since then, however, Windows has gradually become more capable as a publishing platform. It has drained off support from one of Apple's key customer bases, the "creative professionals" who work in graphic design, publishing and other visually demanding fields.

"It used to be that virtually the only platform the graphics artist used was Mac," Tarter said. "Now there's probably parity in terms of capabilities between Windows machines and Macs, and Adobe just naturally has started paying more attention to Microsoft and less to Apple. That's the primary reason I see for a drifting apart--it's numbers." ....

"Since Apple's not under scrutiny for being a monopoly, it can perpetrate behavior that's more egregious in that respect (bundling) than Microsoft can," Kay said. While Apple's behavior may be high-handed, there's little anyone can do, he said. "Your customers may be annoyed, your developer partners may be annoyed, but regulators certainly aren't going to do anything."

[Law]

I haven't done a cost analysis since the G5 came out...

You should. The G5 is 2~3x as fast as the G4 for most purposes.

[Lael]

Apple's iPhoto brought Photoshop to the masses, and Apple's iMovie brought movie-creation to the masses. Apple's Garageband has brought music composition to the masses, and iDVD has brought DVD production to the masses. There are competing programs on the Windows side, but they don't work well together, and they aren't nearly as intuitive.

One other thing...get a Microsoft supported PC...and 2 BILLION Indians and Chinese [and G-D only knows how many Russians] can do your job at a mere pittance of a wage..."Death on a Cracker", as they say.

Look, I'll probably keep a core PC competency, but, while initially attracted to the Crashproof features of Apple's OSX, I now find the almost total absence of competitive Indian, Chinese, and Russian Operations with the Apple to be Overwhelmingly attractive!

Within the month, I will have my first Apple Machine!

[Leroy S. Mort]

One other thing...get a Microsoft supported PC...and 2 BILLION Indians and Chinese [and G-D only knows how many Russians] can do your job at a mere pittance of a wage.

I'm curious. What type of job do you plan to be doing that's dependent exclusively on Apple being your platform?

[antiRepublicrat]

Even so, the fact that it has Premiere in the name is keeping most professionals from even investigating Premiere Pro.

Funny, that's exactly why we had the name InDesign instead of PageMaker 7.